THE POLICE PROBLEM
The police problem is that police are policed by the police. Cops are accountable only to other cops, which is no accountability at all.
99.9999% of police brutality, corruption, and misconduct is never investigated, never punished, never makes the news, so it's not on this page.
When cops are caught breaking the law, they're investigated by other cops. Details are kept quiet, the officers' names are withheld from public knowledge, and what info is eventually released is only what police choose to release — often nothing at all.
When police are fired — which is all too rare — they leave with 'law enforcement experience' and can easily find work in another police department nearby. It's called "Wandering Cops."
When police testify under oath, they lie so frequently that cops themselves have a joking term for it: "testilying." Yet it's almost unheard of for police to be punished or prosecuted for perjury.
Cops can and do get away with lawlessness, because cops protect other cops. If they don't, they aren't cops for long.
The legal doctrine of "qualified immunity" renders police officers invulnerable to lawsuits for almost anything they do. In practice, getting past 'qualified immunity' is so unlikely, it makes headlines when it happens.
All this is a path to a police state.
In a free society, police must always be under serious and skeptical public oversight, with non-cops and non-cronies in charge, issuing genuine punishment when warranted.
Police who break the law must be prosecuted like anyone else, promptly fired if guilty, and barred from ever working in law-enforcement again.
That's the solution.
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Our definition of ‘cops’ is broad, and includes prison guards, probation officers, shitty DAs and judges, etc — anyone who has the authority to fuck over people’s lives, with minimal or no oversight.
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RULES
① Real-life decorum is expected. Please don't say things only a child or a jackass would say in person.
② If you're here to support the police, you're trolling. Please exercise your right to remain silent.
③ Saying ~~cops~~ ANYONE should be killed lowers the IQ in any conversation. They're about killing people; we're not.
④ Please don't dox or post calls for harassment, vigilantism, tar & feather attacks, etc.
Please also abide by the instance rules.
It you've been banned but don't know why, check the moderator's log. If you feel you didn't deserve it, hey, I'm new at this and maybe you're right. Send a cordial PM, for a second chance.
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ALLIES
• r/ACAB
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INFO
• A demonstrator's guide to understanding riot munitions
• Cops aren't supposed to be smart
• Killings by law enforcement in Canada
• Killings by law enforcement in the United Kingdom
• Killings by law enforcement in the United States
• Know your rights: Filming the police
• Three words. 70 cases. The tragic history of 'I can’t breathe' (as of 2020)
• Police aren't primarily about helping you or solving crimes.
• Police lie under oath, a lot
• Police spin: An object lesson in Copspeak
• Police unions and arbitrators keep abusive cops on the street
• Shielded from Justice: Police Brutality and Accountability in the United States
• When the police knock on your door
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ORGANIZATIONS
• NAACP
• National Police Accountability Project
• Vera: Ending Mass Incarceration
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Paramilitary means largely volunteer organizations even if their leadership gets (or not) government funding. Salaried by US empire ICE agents are not paramilitary. Calling them paramilitary might imply genuine intrinsic motivation instead of salaried cog.
These people -- these fascist that are willfully signing up to hunt, abduct, beat, torture, and kill our neighbors -- are not simply a cog in the machine that have no humanity after years of military in service of an empire. The truth is much more horrific. These are just regular American bigots with no training, emboldened by a regime that wants power above all else. They have voluntarily given up their humanity to become a modern day gestapo, not because they are brave or good, quite the opposite.
Orpo (the Green police = national police with long German history similar to FBI) had heavy SS influence throughout its post 1930s existence, and under direct SS control in 1936. Gestapo department IV B 4 told where ICE should go find some jews to deport. They also reported to SS. Orpo was the department who'd conduct surprise firing squads.
Police, as a rule, and ACAB, generally prefer the fascist option of "shoot to kill when they get scared" and a hierarchy that will support their decisions. Minneapolis officers involved in murder this week were definitely bad apples, but the much bigger MAGA = Nazi methods comparisons, is all of the doubling down on hate from Cabinet officials, and announcing door to door raids expansions to purge harder, are orders of magnitude more responsible for amplifying the national nightmare.